Pakistani president helping to "ward off evil" by, er, sacrificing goats

A spokesman for the President told the Dawn newspaper the goats were slaughtered as an act of Sadaqah – meaning “voluntary charity” in Islam, whereby one gives out money or the meat of a slaughtered animal to the poor to win Allah’s blessing and stave off misfortune.

“It has been an old practice of Mr Zardari to offer Sadaqah. He has been doing this for a long time,” the spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, told the paper.